A large table was brought in, and chairs, then food and refreshment.
Many of them looked tired, especially the wizards of the Royal Order. The suggestion to rest was brought up, but Master Kruuga ended that hope with the truth of things. “If that wizard did get away, then the Paragon already knows where we are.”
“He got away,” Zeezle, Vanx, and Fark said at the same time.
“Here,” Chelda handed a flask to one of the Parydon wizards. “Just one sip,” she said. “Not a gulp, unless you want to feel like lightning itself!”
The tired wizard sniffed the stuff and winced, but took a pull anyway.
“What is it?” He wiped his mouth as his pupils dilated and his eyes grew wide.
“Battleberry juice from Moonsy’s elves.” Chelda grinned and threw Vanx another flask. He gave her a look and noticed how on edge and alert she and Fark both looked.
“It’s not diluted.”
This time Vanx saw the purple color of her teeth and sighed. It was potent stuff. He and Thorn had relied on its ability to quell fear when they’d trekked through the Rotted Root Way, to sneak into the Hoar Witch’s palace and surprise her. As much as he hated it, it was his palace now, and the fruity alchemical-tasting stuff worked.
He took a deep swig, knowing it couldn’t compete with the power he’d just felt when he’d held the dragon teardrop in his hand. Then he had summoned a sailor’s wind to save the ship from the black dragon’s falling acid and hurry it to port.
But even as he had those thoughts, he was suddenly emboldened and anxious to face the Paragon bastard. He felt like he could defeat it. He knew he could.
Before long, all of them were on a battle rush, and luckily, they kept the sense among them to abandon the encampment immediately and make their great plan elsewhere.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The demon’s horde was many
while the heroes left were few.
But the wizard and his mighty wyrm
made the demon pay his due.
- The Ballad of Orn Spike
In the end, there was no great plan devised. It was simple. They returned to the encampment, moved most everything they could outside under a pavilion that had been a barracks, and acted as if they were unaware that the Paragon might be coming for them.
Vanx, Russet and Zeezle had all decided that, if they wanted to change or avoid the portent the mirror kept showing each of them, it was best to stay away from Parydon Isle altogether; to try to defeat the thing somewhere else was the most prudent option.
“He never let me look,” Vanx heard Chelda say behind him.
Fark must have asked her what her portent was. Vanx had long since decided that only those who needed to should be allowed to look into the mirror properly. Still, it stung a bit, for Zeezle was never around, and Thorn was dead. As for the people he was with most of the time, Chelda was the most loyal and devoted, save only for Gallarael and Sir Poopsalot.
Vanx decided that he would offer her a look, but give her fair warning. The mirror was in the study, though, where he and Zeezle had been searching spellbooks and notes. To his mental list of things to do after they bound the Paragon with the namestone, he added: Offer Chelda a look in the mirror.
Inside the cavern, Master Kruuga’s two Zythian wizards were ready to cast a shielding that would protect them all while they retreated. They had a different, well-hidden, passage to escape. But also in the cavern there were three hundred bowmen, and stacks of arrows tipped with Heart Tree leaves dipped in silver.
Outside, King Russet and his Royal Order of Wizards were just under the pavilion, looking at a map. The king’s guards were concealing bows and their own silver-tipped arrows. They were pretending to laugh and joke, but Vanx could smell the nervousness seeping from them. He reached out and gave Poops a mental scratch behind the ears. The dog’s senses had heightened his own half-Zythian abilities to see, hear and smell far more effectively than any human. Then the sky crackled and flashed with energy, leaving the air acrid and full of static.
The Paragon Dracus had come. It appeared over the cavern entrance. It was glowing blue, and its spiked mane was prickled, its narrowed eyes full of menace.
“Which of you killed Baru’s dragon? Which of you put Korch in the sea?” it asked. Then it sniffed the air, and suddenly looked right at Vanx.
The Paragon flickered then, revealing to Vanx that it was just the Trigon wizard riding a dazed wyrm, using an illusionary tactic to appear as his master.
“You see that?” Zeezle asked Vanx as he stood. “I drowned that black bitch.” He took a few steps away from the others and out from under the pavilion. There was a whooshing sound, and Zeezle managed to do a sideways flip that cartwheeled him right out of the way of the blue, gooey blast that splattered where he’d just stood. The top of the pavilion, however, was sent sailing like a scarf in a gale.
“Gah, Zeezle can move,” Chelda mumbled.
One of the men behind Vanx vomited just from the smell of the stuff, and Vanx felt his stomach twist into a knot. He’d been drenched in that terrible goo once and did not want to feel that ill again, ever.
Vanx was ready to cast the binding spell he’d chosen. He had the namestone clutched in one hand. His other hand was gripping the piece of material wrapped around the dragon teardrop in his pocket. He could be grasping the tear in an instant, if he needed to, but then his blood ran as cold as ice, and he was stricken with terror.
Vanx felt the Paragon Dracus, the real one. It was close, very close.
Russet came rushing toward Vanx and Zeezle, with Master Kruuga and two of the Royal Wizards right behind him. Four of Russet’s guards were leading the way, and they were all drawing and aiming just above Vanx’s head.
Out of the cavern ran the archers, all of them launching arrows as quickly as they could at the two Paragons they saw. One of the Royal Wizards cast a ball of flaming green fire up at the imposter.
Vanx started to turn and look, but the whole world whirled around him, and then he and the men who were coming to protect him were in the now familiar core of a teleportal, only this one was nearly instantaneous, and felt as if it were constructed of a whole different type of magic than anything he’d ever felt before.
The next thing Vanx knew, they were on the checkerboard floor atop Parydon Isle. The sky was dark with storm. It was raining hard, and when lightning flashed, he saw that Russet, Master Kruuga, and a few others, including two of the Royal Wizards, were among them. He turned to find Chelda and Fark there, too, but Fark had appeared half in, half out of one of the broken granite columns that had once supported the palace’s roof. His sword clashed to the ground as one arm and the exposed leg sputtered and spasmed his life away.
Chelda was pointing behind Vanx and launching a silver-tipped spear with all the might he’d ever seen her muster. What might have been a tail, or even a tentacle, swept around and batted her out into the darkness.
Rage burned the ice from Vanx, the spell words formed on his lips, lightning flashed again, and he saw his gargan friend flailing through a sky full of stunted wyrms, away from the mountaintop. As she plummeted beyond his field of vision, more than one of the shriveled dragons dove after her.
Vanx started to finish the spell by saying the Paragon’s name, so he could end this charade for good. It was all there was left for him to do: to bind the thing to the will of whomever held the namestone. The creature he saw before him suddenly shifted into his mother. Her eyes and hair were as perfectly golden as he remembered them.
He smiled back at her, but then she jabbed him in the face with the trident-like dazer. One tip hit him in the center of the forehead, and the other two prongs stabbed into each cheek.
There was a flash of blue energy then, and Vanx heard Russet and Zeezle both screaming, “Noooo!” After that, a clash of thunder, so loud and concussive that it drowned away the sound of everything else, exploded around him, and then his world went black.
Chapter Twenty-Fiv
e
No matter how many venture
no matter how hard they try
the Wildwood swallows everyone
who goes too far inside.
- A song from Dyntalla
The chaos that followed Vanx’s dazing was intense. From the darkened sky, Zeezle saw one of the turned dragons alight on Fark’s half-exposed body and tear away a chunk of shoulder. One of Russet’s soldiers was now being mauled between two of the pruned dragons.
Pruned, to Zeezle, was exactly what these things seemed to be. They were being turned from a plum to a prune. This made him rage, for even though he’d lost his only brother to a dragon, he had devoted his life to the study of them.
Two of the men near him were bathed in the gooey blue stuff the Trigon wizard was throwing down at them. One of Russet’s guards tackled him. One of Russet’s remaining Royal Wizards and Master Kruuga were forced to leap over flying debris and then skirt the huge divot caused when the other royal wizard was pulped into a bloody mist by the Paragon’s spell.
Russet came running at them fast. With an intended sprinkle of the sands of time around the small lot, Zeezle calculated the timing of the king reaching them, and then cast his teleportal.
Lightning flashed right before King Russet, and he stopped, drawing his sword. He looked at Zeezle and mouthed, I gave him my word.
Zeezle didn’t like it, but it was too late for him to do anything about it.
King Russet had been left behind
***
The group appeared at the sward, which wasn’t what Zeezle had intended to do. He’d intended to take them back to the encampment, to help the men there fighting the Paragon’s wizard. At the last moment, though, something had flashed into his mind, and when Moonsy and Gallarael came running up, the elf looking for Chelda, Gallarael for Vanx and her brother, it was Poops who Zeezle ran to greet.
After a few moments, the others realized that King Russet wasn’t among them, and Zeezle recalled how Vanx and the young king had described the portent of them fighting in that storm on that marvelous floor. That was happening this very moment, he somehow knew, and he hoped the young king remembered exactly what he’d told him to do, for Vanx was the greatest swordsman Zeezle had ever seen. And he’d been to Harthgar, where they boast that claim. The best man in Harthgar, the best man in Westland, Seaward, or Highwander, didn’t stand a chance against Vanx. Vanx Malic could whip them raw without even drawing blood.
After he put his head against the confused-looking dog’s head and calmed him, he used his Zythian abilities to give Poops instruction. Then he stood and took a deep breath.
Gallarael was yelling at Master Kruuga and the guards about Vanx and Russet, and Moonsy was sobbing, obviously hearing about Vanx’s and Chelda’s fates.
Zeezle decided there was no time to spare. He reached into his shirt with one hand and started cracking his whip with the other.
After a few loud snaps of his leather cord, the noise died down, and everyone looked at him. He was still blowing the whistle he’d put in his mouth, with puffed cheeks, but none of them could hear the pitch it was resonating.
He spat the thing then, letting it dangle on its cord. “General Moonsy, take Sir Poopsalot to the nexus immediately!” His hand came up, showing that there was no room for argument here. They locked eyes, and Zeezle tried to force her to trust him. “Chelda is a warrior. She may be in the water. I am going after her with Kelse. Do not let that dog out of the nexus.”
“Gallarael, Kruuga, get ready to mount Pyra and go straight for Parydon Isle. Vanx may kill Russet. Do not let either of them die. No matter Vanx’s condition or Russet’s oath.” Zeezle looked at Master Kruuga for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Ice them, if it comes to it.”
“I need you.” Zeezle pointed at the human wizard standing there in dumbfounded awe. This one hadn’t yet been to the sward and taken in the silver-covered Heart Tree, or the many diverse types of fae that, in his mind, had only existed in the texts of the Royal Librarium. “You!” Zeezle snapped in front of his eyes. The wizard looked at him at the same moment Pyra’s deep roar blasted from not so far away.
“You think this is amazing, wizard,” Zeezle forced a grin to try to ease the man’s discomfort and fear. “Wait until you see the world from dragonback.”
“I need two medika.” Zeezle started pulling the wizard by the sleeve and finished giving his orders. “Ride in my hair, dinks,” Zeezle told the two glassine-winged creatures. “And I need Buzz and his arrows.”
“Come, Gal,” Zeezle urged as he headed them to where the dragons were landing near the palace, but she passed him in changeling form, and Master Kruuga was there, loading gear, when he got there.
***
Vanx felt himself being controlled. He opened his eyes to find the world tinged blue and his mind not his own. Before him was the one controlling him, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t break free of his master’s grasp.
“Kill him,” the master ordered and pointed at Russet.
Vanx didn’t want to draw his blade, but he did. The part of his mind that was his own was panicking and frantic. Russet had his sword drawn, and Vanx remembered telling the boy to kill him were this to ever happen. He didn’t want Russet to kill him; his mind wasn’t lost. He was being controlled because-- because-- no, he figured it the other way. He still had control of his mind because he was half Zythian. The Paragon didn’t know he was half Zythian.
That didn’t matter now, for even as the Paragon leapt into the storm and disappeared, King Russet was coming to keep his oath.
Vanx had to find a way to get control of his physical body, but even as he had those thoughts, his sword clashed with Russet’s, and lightning crackled up from the tallest of the truncated columns beside them.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The witch is cold and evil
her heart is black and hard.
Hair like snakes and fangs for teeth
her claws are frozen shards.
- Frosted Soul
Chelda woke to the plucking claws of one of the stunted dragons. She was on her back in the water, and her hand was already pulling her blade free.
She almost hated killing the thing. It had caught her in the air and held her, even as her weight pulled it from the sky. She might have died hitting these strangely warm waves from that high of a fall. But its relentless grip had already cost all of her breath once. This time she would--
“UGGHHHH!” she yelled as she jabbed her blue-glowing Trigon blade hilt-deep into the creature.
She couldn’t get the sword pulled free as the thing sank, which was just as well, for she wanted a bigger one anyway, one that wasn’t made by some old evil demon. Poor Fark’s sword was up there atop the mountain, and Chelda thought Vanx was, too. She started swimming toward the rocky shore, for the side she’d been flung from was a sheer cliff face. She’d cleared all the broken rock at the waterline, too. She would have found the cobalt sea without the terrible wounds the wyrm left when it tried to catch her and probably would have died from the impact alone.
If she could get out of the water, Chelda could make the climb, but it would exhaust her for whatever madness was waiting at the top. By the Lanch himself, she was already exhausted. No matter what, she had to make the shore. If she didn’t do that, she would drown.
It was dark, save for when lightning flashed. Just ahead of her, she saw a huge beast that caused her heart to thunder through her chest like a flock of startled birds. Then another, more distant, burst of light showed that it was just a piece of the cliff face that had fallen but hadn’t been completely submerged.
Chelda pulled herself up on it, only to find herself amid a hungry-looking pack of seawolves. The biggest one, a male with ivory spikes jutting out of its head, and a long, toothy snout, charged her. In a fit of sheer determination, she got to her hands and knees and roared at it. When it stopped a few handspans from her she punched it right in the side of its head.
She
slipped in the moss and landed hard on her side, but the rock had emptied. She used her last bit of strength to make it to a higher part of the miniature island, and then collapsed.
***
King Russet was just clashing blades, circling cautiously, waiting for Vanx to make his move. He’d seen Vanx fight ogres at the edge of the Wildwood and knew he was as deadly as they come.
Vanx dove forward and rolled acrobatically, adding a jab at the heel cord, which Russet easily hopped over. Russet went to smack Vanx in the head with the flat of his blade, to see if it would snap him out of the daze. Vanx had his sword behind him, to block, while his body was spinning low. His foot came around and swept Russet off of his feet. Luckily for Russet, the tile was slick, and Vanx nearly fell, too.
Recovering and moving away from the debris toward the center of the floor, they went, circling warily.
Above them, the storm still raged, but amber-hued rays of dull moonlight were finding their way through the clouds. One of these found the combatants, as if to illuminate the scene for the gods themselves. It was distracting enough that they both gave the sky a glance. But the battle resumed in earnest.
Russet was no acrobat, but he was agile and able to defend against Vanx’s attacks. He hadn’t yet summoned the courage to do what Zeezle had asked of him, though. To blatantly leave oneself open to a kill shot was asking a lot, even if Vanx had yet to make a move he couldn’t easily counter.
The Paragon had fled, surely thinking Vanx would kill him. But Vanx wasn’t trying to kill him.
For that instant, Russet opened his guard, inviting Vanx’s favorite move, but Vanx didn’t take it.
Then he twisted away.
What did it mean?
Was Vanx somehow keeping himself from attempting a death blow?
Again, Russet left his guard open, and Vanx didn’t attack. It was just as the portent had shown him.
Paragon Dracus: The Legend of Vanx Malic Book Six Page 8